(upbeat music) - It's time for the great migration.

- Charlie's gonna see the largest pollination event in the world.

- Boom.

I'm following thousands of bees across the country.

- All righty.

- Starting from Dallas.

Woo!

That's awesome.

Oh, now the bees are coming.

Heading up north to Idaho.

- We hold the temperature at 40 degrees.

- All the way to sunn California to pollinate almonds.

- The biggest cash crop in California.

- So, buckle up y'all.

- Your forks are gonna hit!

- I mean, I've seen worse.

- 'Cause it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

(person laughing) Holy, ow.

Hit my head.

My name is Charlie Agar and I'm a beekeeper in the Texas Hill Country.

They got me.

I help people with nuisance bee problems and rescue bees from sticky situations.

(bees buzzing) I think I got some bees on me.

With bee populations in decline, it's more important now than ever to save these bees.

- Whoa!

- Oh!

- Beekeeping has taken me all over the state of Texas and working with bees has given me the opportunity to meet some incredible people along the way.

(group laughing) I'm always learning, experiencing new things, and working hard.

Things can get a little crazy.

Ow, ow.

(Charlie grunting) But I love it.

(chainsaw rumbling) (upbeat music continues) Oh yeah!

Timber!

This is just wild.

I love it.

I love it.

We're solving somebody's problem We're putting these bees to work where they're meant to work, somewhere safe & away from people.

This is what it's all about.

Retreat.

Whoo!

(upbeat music) - For years I've been dreaming about expanding my small bee operation to become a migratory beekeeper.

But what exactly does that entail?

Today I'm meeting with Prime Bees.

They'll give me an inside look at what it takes to grow from a backyard beekeeper, hey Justin, to a buzzing commercial business.

How you doing man?

- Good man.

You doing all right?

- Yeah, good.

Thanks so much for having me.

- For sure.

We're glad you're here.

- So this is Prime Bees?

- Yep.

This is where it all happens.

(dog grunting) - My name's Justin Russell.

- I am Ashley Ralph.

- And together we're Prime Bees.

(Ashley laughing) - Oh my God.

Please don't.

- Okay, let's do that again.

(upbeat music) - We own Prime Bees Apiary in College Station.

- This is awesome and really cool spot.

I wanna learn all about your operation.

I wanna pick your brain today.

- Basically we do everything that you can think of with bees.

- We sell bees, we do pollination, we lease bees for anybody who needs it on their property.

We do bee removals, which you know all about.

- Yeah!

- We help people maintain bees on their property.

We raise bees and queens.

- We sell honey like every other beekeeper.

- We kind of welcome people in to teach about bees.

And then we run an Airbnb... - Out here at the farm.

(Ashley laughing) (dog grunting) - Nothing funnier than a good bee pun.

- Let's have a tour.

- Sure.

I'll follow you up.

- All right, dogs, come on.

Come on.

- Woo.

- Lead, Bobo.

(upbeat music) - So we'll go over this way and I'll kind of give y'all a little quick overview.

- Okay.

- This is the chill out spot right here.

A lot of people like to visit us and do tours, which my wife is doing righ now and just learn about bees.

- How was the tour?

This is good.

You ready?

(customer laughing) - And then right over there we have our educational apiary.

This is where we like to keep all different types of hives.

We have Warre hives over here, which is something popular in England.

Then we have some Technoset, which is basically a plastic hive, kinda like the Apimaye.

- Right.

- Top Bars, Long Langs.

I got a flow hive.

Little baby Top Bars.

I have breeder queens that we keep in here as well.

So our breeder queens are all gonna be instrumentally inseminated, and- - Justin and Ashley do it all.

What I'm really here to se is their commercial operation.

(dog yapping) - So Charlie let us know that he wanted to learn how we function as a commercial operation.

- Oh look, it's the boss.

- Hey!

- Hey Ashley.

How you doing?

- Good.

Good to see you.

- Good to see you too.

- The type of equipment that we use and how to operate a forklift.

- Thank you for having me.

- You ready to get to work?

- I'm ready to work.

I love working.

- So we're gonna try to giv him a little taste of all that.

- I'm gonna throw him on this machine here.

We're gonna go knock som beehives off pallets real quick.

Stir 'em up.

Maybe get stung a little bit.

You know?

Normal stuff.

- Have you ever?

- I have never driven a forklift I've always wanted to.

- Okay.

Well, it's pretty simple.

There's only like 14 different ways to drop a pallet.

- If you've never lifted a beehive before, let me tell you, it's heavy.

Potentially hundreds of pounds per hive.

And Justin and Ashley have 1,200 hives.

So they need big equipment to get the job done.

Oh, like a ballerina.

Oh my goodness.

Ooh, that feels good.

That feels real good.

That feels better than picking boxes up already.

- Yeah, like it's so much easier on the back.

- The big kid in me has been dying to get on a forklift.

I just hope I don't drop a bunch of bees.

- So right here we have, this is a two speed machine, high and low.

- Okay.

- We got lift, tilt, side shift.

Those are the three that you're gonna be working.

You push forward with your toes that goes forward.

You push back with your heel and it makes you go backward.

And over to your right is gonna be a key.

And that's how you start it up.

- Here we go, baby.

- Get it.

(engine rumbling) Give it up and down.

Give it a try.

Lift, that's down.

Go up.

- Press the pedal.

Go forward and then back.

(upbeat music continues) Easy, easy.

- Hopefully he'll be able t successfully move some pallets.

- There's a yard at the end of the road.

- We'll practice with some empty pallets and then we'll let him take on a pallet full of bees.

- I'm sailing.

I'm a Farmer Brown.

I've always wanted to drive one of these things, man.

This is awesome.

I love it.

- Okay.

Cell builder in here.

I guess that means they're feisty.

- The worst that could happen is he drops a pallet of angry bees.

(upbeat music) My little blue hands.

- I'm ready for some surgery.

- Forks down.

- Nope.

- All right.

All right, all right.

- Oh, gosh.

So fast.

- The pedal's a little testy.

(upbeat music continues) Lower your fork, tilt them down just a little bit.

Now you should be able to drive straight back.

- Oh!

- Professional.

- Now we got bees on.

- There you go.

- One practice run and now it's time to move some live bees.

And Ashley is not even wearing a suit.

- A little lower.

- I'm feeling the pressure.

- Okay, now raise them up just a tiny bit.

There you go.

- There you go.

- Now slide in.

(dramatic music) Now pull 'em up.

- Up.

- There you go.

- Honestly, it's daylight.

If it was dark- - The odds are in his favor?

- If it was dark and we were loading a truck or unloading a truck, I would say 100% he's gonna drop a hive.

Doing good.

- A little further in.

- Little bit more.

- Little more this way.

- Little bit more.

Whoa there.

Whoa there.

Now, down.

Woops, oh!

Go forward a little bit.

Now, down.

Down.

Back out.

Down, back out.

There you go.

And whenever you're backin out, you wanna back out straight or your forks are gonna hit - Okay.

- and you're gonna move the pallets.

So go straight back.

You're good.

- Give him a little juice.

- I made that look hard.

That was awesome.

I mean, I just moved four hives and I'm feeling like I'm sitting in a lounge chair.

So that's a lot better than hive lifters and leaning over on your back.

My back feels even better already.

So it was pretty cool.

It's very precise.

It's very powerful.

Like just the turn of the wheel.

So I think there's a lot to, it's one of those things you learn by doing.

- I mean, I've seen worse.

So.

- I've done worse.

(Ashley laughing) - Yeah.

- Woo.

(laughs) - He'll get the hang of it.

He'll be a pro by the time h gets all these on pallets, so.

- No concerns.

Not yet.

- You should see me parallel park.

- So gentle.

- Until he hits the reverse.

- Throttle, yeah.

- Little higher.

There you go.

- Little forward.

Little forward - Woo.

- Perfect.

- It's like I found that gas pedal.

- Good.

(upbeat music continues) - Pissed those bees off.

Yeehaw.

- We're doing all right.

And I can see his confidence growing.

- This thing needs a seatbelt.

- Which is probably dangerous.

(laughs) - I'm just gonna take these home - Okay.

(laughs) - I'll take these back to New Braunfels.

- That's fine.

- All the way.

- Gonna take these with me.

- You're in a Jeep, it's gonna be interesting.

- Little lower.

- Nope.

- Little lower.

- Outstanding.

(Ashley laughing) Getting better.

Getting better every time.

I bet you if you did this all night, you'd probably get really good at it.

I mean, the thing is, you gotta start somewhere.

Right?

And he's never driven a forklift ever.

So, I think he's doing great for his situation.

- Yeah.

- Would I let him load a truck for me right now?

No, but at the end of the day, I think he'll be ready.

- (laughs) Yeah.

You're doing good.

- There.

(engine rumbling) (GoPro crashing) - I just broke the GoPro.

(upbeat music) (Ashley laughing) - So was it mounted?

Yikes.

Yeah.

- Oh, no.

- All right, let me... - We go through crash cams like Homer Simpson goes through donuts.

(bees buzzing) - Holy, ow.

Hit my head.

(laughs Woo.

I am a forklift driver now, baby.

That was awesome.

I was a little shaky, jerky, but I didn't hurt anything.

The only thing that I broke was our GoPro.

We had hanging on and I lifted it up too high and it snapped that thin right into pieces, this clamp.

But man, that was really easy.

We just moved 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 32 hives.

That would've taken a lot of back breaking labor.

And so, being able to pick i up with a forklift is awesome.

And it gets me thinking that you know myself, at 600, 800, 1,000 hives and doing some minor migration and being able to move them on pallets, that might be kind of cool.

The other thing is collaborating with folks like this.

Beekeepers help one another.

We buy equipment from one another, buy bees from one another.

We share transport.

So realizing that as a beekeeper I don't live in a silo, that I'm connected to a whole network of other people doing similar work.

- Charlie, if you get a to out, you gotta put the toy up.

So will you put the forklift back over the shop please?

- Forklift ride!

All right.

- Thank you so much Charlie.

Thank you.

- Good to see you.

Appreciate your time.

Thank you.

- Bye.

- I'm like a sponge, baby.

I'm like a sponge.

I'm just eating it up.

Taking those little bits of information.

This is the stuff I lay in bed at night and think about, "Oh boy," this detail, that detail.

What does that look like?

And it's a good laying in bed at night.

It's like possibilities.

Woo!

Woo!

(upbeat music continues) When it comes to large scale migratory beekeeping, there's a guy in North Texas who's making all the buzz.

- My name's Blake Shook and I'm a beekeeper.

(Blake laughing) - I pretend to be a beekeeper.

- Blake got his first beehive when he was only 12 and he was instantly hooked.

- By the time I graduated high school, I had a couple hundred beehives, was selling to local stores, and just moved into beekeeping full-time.

So we've got a number of different businesses in the industry.

We've got Desert Creek Honey.

- Yeah, baby.

So like, that's okay?

- Yep.

- Nice.

- We take our own honey, bottle it, sell it to grocery stores.

- And this is year round, you're doing this?

- This is year round.

- So you bottle it here & then?

(upbeat music) We have Texas Bee Supply, which sells beekeeping equipment.

Welcome to Texas Bee Supply.

- I feel like spending money.

- Please do.

- When it comes to bees, Blake does just about everything.

What I'm really here to see is his large scale migratory operation.

(upbeat music) Before Blake moves a single bee, he has to go through and grade each and every hive.

We're looking for the Rocky Balboas, they're the ones that go on the truck.

So we're looking for big strong hives.

- Ready to work some bees?

- I am ready to work some bees.

- Okay, we've got 456 in here.

- 400?

- And we've got about, 10 minutes.

- (laughs) That's perfect.

- We're gonna speed.

- These bees are all gonna be traveling soon?

- So these girls are headed to North Dakota.

- Okay.

- We are doing a final check to make sure that everything that goes is perfect.

Because it costs us a fortune to put these bees on a truck and send 'em north.

And if they're not gonna make a honey crop, there's no reason to waste money on shipping.

- So you want your best of the best.

This is like top gun.

- Best of the best.

Yes.

These are the top gun hives.

- Awesome.

- And so we grade over and over throughout the year.

Yeah, we have to get to the point where when we open the lid, we're all good.

Great hive.

- Ooh.

Tell me about grading.

- I'm looking at bee population.

- Lot of bees.

- Always a good sign.

I've got little clues I'm always looking for.

Like some fresh bur comb they're drawing out in the feeder.

- Great sign.

- They're calm.

I mean they're not buzzing.

They're not roaring like they might be queen-less.

No off sounds or smells.

I'm good to go.

- And we're not even smoking them at all.

- No.

Often when we're grading, we're not smoking because we're going so fast.

By the time you could get a smoker stuck in here and smoked, we're gone.

Because we've got hundreds or thousands to get through in a very short window.

At a glance you have to be able to tell what's going on.

Is it queen-less?

Do they have brood?

What's the bee population?

What's the weight?

How they sound.

To determine what's going on in the hive.

- May I?

- Please.

(upbeat music continues) - That looks great.

- Yeah.

They're all full of bees.

- All full of bees.

Boom, boom.

- That's what we wanna see.

- Do you quantify it at all?

Do you say like grade A, like, is it like eggs?

- Not really.

It's more like... - Pass or fail.

- Pass or fail, yes.

Exactly.

- Pass or fail.

Okay.

What's up?

- Not great.

It's not bad, but it's not as full of bees.

And so that's one that's on the verge.

- Okay.

What do we do if it's a crummy hive?

- So what we'll usually do is go through a whole yard and we'll mark the crummy hives.

& then we'll take the good ones to North Dakota or wherever they're headed.

And then you've got crummy hives left over that you figure out what to do with.

If they're really crummy, then they're just not gonna survive.

If they're salvageable, figure out what they need.

And that's more of a longer process of diagnosing.

So do you wanna grade some bees for California?

- Sure.

How do you do that?

- Let's take a look.

- When you think of beekeeping, most people think that honey makes the money, but the bulk of the profit comes from pay to pollinate.

And the biggest cash crop in this biz is almonds.

- For almonds, it's a little different.

We have to count frames of bees.

- And you get paid in California based on hive strength.

- Exactly, and so the mor frames of bees that there are, the more we get paid.

- The almond industry is multi-billion dollar operation & it all begins with these bees.

- When we're grading for almonds you're gonna lift up the entire hive and you're gonna look at the bottom.

Great.

We've got 8 frames of bees.

You know, there's bees between all these frames.

And then you're gonna lay it back down and you're gonna open the top.

You're gonna go, "Okay, I've got eight frames of bees up here too."

So if I've got 8 frames of bees all the way on the bottom, and eight frames of bees all the way on the top, I don't have to break the boxes apart.

I've got 16 frames of bees.

Almond pollination needs 1 frames total between two boxes.

These commercial beekeepers send hundreds or sometimes thousands of hives.

They've really gotta be able to grade quickly and effectively I'm gonna lift this one up.

- Make it a good one, Charlie.

- It better be good.

We're going to make money in California.

- A little further.

A little further - California.

Here we come.

- Oh nice.

- Man, I'll sell that in California all day long.

- Beautiful.

- These hives have been graded and they're ready to start their epic cross country migration.

(honey sloshing) (upbeat music) - Charlie's gonna see some pretty cool stuff that really most people will never get to see.

Really, behind the scenes.

He'll see the larges pollination event in the world.

Bees being unloaded off o trucks, put onto smaller trucks, shipped out into orchards all in the middle of the night.

It's just a really unique different opportunity.

- And this is where the bees go from Texas, where they finished their season built up their Texas honey, they've been harvested, they're a little bit lighter.

Now they're moving up in North Dakota and Montana.

Here in Texas, everything's dyin But my bees, I gotta feed them.

These commercial bees they're going up to a banquet.

We are gonna be loading pallets of bees, four hives per pallet onto trucks, stacking them up.

It's a laborious process.

So I'm gonna get as involved as they'll let me, and we're gonna load up and take the bees to the far north, baby.

- So tonight we're loading up these bees onto a semi-truck and the driver, as soon as we finish loading and strapping down, he's gonna head directly to North Dakota.

And he's not gonna stop essentially.

I mean he's gonna take a quick break.

Go to the restroom.

- Restroom break.

- Refuel.

But he'll be in North Dakota by tomorrow night.

- Wow.

- And so they'll be unloaded.

Supers will be on the hives by Saturday morning and they'll be ready to make honey.

- So much of the honey we eat comes from Montana, North Dakota, from those big clover fields.

This is big business for beekeepers and beekeeping.

Moving bees on a big scale.

So your guys are here, - Yeah.

- and it's getting cooler a little bit.

- We're gonna fire up the smokers & we're ready to roll.

- Ready to roll.

- Fantastic.

Let's get you stung - Let's go get 'em.

So we're doing this in the evening because all the bees go in to their homes at night.

(upbeat music) You use burlap mostly?

- Always, yeah.

It's the best.

- Even on my micro scale as a beekeeper, I'm loading bees in the dark or right at dusk.

Hey, what's that yellow dot on there, Blake?

- Oh that says that they're good or not.

- That says that they're good or not.

- Yes.

- That's a secret Blake Shook recipe?

- Yeah, well it's a recipe we mix up constantly so no one else can figure out our recipe.

- There you go.

It's like baseball.

- Exactly.

- I closed up their entrances, put them in a trailer, put them inside the bee-mobile, take them on my little micro movements to my ag yards in and around New Braunfels area.

Here, we're taking pallets of bees.

We're not closing off the entrances.

Lots of bees on the front.

We're relying on the fact that at dark, they're gonna all go inside the hive.

They got the lights rocking and rolling.

We're lifting them up on a truck with a forklift.

Man, they are moving fast.

There's no time to sit around and chat.

(upbeat music continues) This is hustling bees until it gets dark and then they roll.

We will not see me on a forklift today.

They don't need my help.

And it would take me way too long.

(laughs) Watch out.

This is how business gets done in beekeeping for sure.

Smokey!

This is a unique experience, getting to move bees with a commercial operation.

This is awesome.

Nothing like it (upbeat music) - That's amazing.

Look at that thing.

It is packed.

How many high?

Four high, double deeps.

Do the math.

That's a lot of bees.

Pretty wild.

This is so cool.

I love it.

I could do this all day.

(upbeat music continues) - Send the bees a drink.

- Everybody needs a little drink now and again, right?

(Charlie laughing) - Yeah.

So we're going to put the net on - Who stands on top?

You do?

- It's whoever gets a short straw.

- Oh right.

All right.

- Hey, if you want to get up there.

- Oh yeah, I'll go up.

Can I?

- Yeah.

- I'll stay outta the way.

- Yeah, well he he'll need your help if you're up there.

- Oh I'll help him.

Sure.

- Hey Charlie?

- Yeah?

- You've really gotta watch the middle 'cause we leave a gap in the middle - Yes, sir.

- between the hives so air blows between 'em.

And it's real sneaky.

If you step in it, you'll fall.

- Okay, you got it.

I'll be real careful.

- And this is recorded right?

So we're not liable.

I don't recommend you get on top.

- No, you're not liable.

No, I'm assuming all risk here completely.

- All right, we all heard that right?

(both laughing) (upbeat music) - Well, woo, that's awesome.

- You know I wasn't sure how it would go because it's kind of crazy to like crawl on top of a truckload of thousands of bees.

- Okay, I'll help you.

- No one wants that job.

I mean, nobody wants to get on top of the truck.

- This is awesome.

I'm a beekeeper.

- That's like the least favorite job because the bees are crawling around everywhere out there and you've gotta unfold the net.

- I'm watching for the crack, Blake.

Don't worry.

Oh now the bees are coming.

Don't trod upon my hive.

- Charlie did a great job in the bees and he got right up on the truck - It's the closest you get to a mountain in Texas.

Up high.

- I was glad 'cause that means I didn't have to get up on top of the truck.

- It's like making the bed just a really big bed.

I could feel the hum through my toes and the balls of my feet.

(Charlie imitates bees buzzing) There's a lot of bees here.

- And got stung.

- Ah!

Right in the butt.

Ow!

Right in the butt.

That hurt.

- Didn't sweat it.

- And now we strap.

Got it.

(upbeat music continues) Every year there's a news item about a truck that goes over and bees that go everywhere.

So, these guys are making sure that doesn't happen.

- Yeah, did a great job.

Really impressed.

- I got stung by a bee in the butt.

Now I'm a professional.

Now I know what I'm doing.

(upbeat music) Woo, Gonzalo.

I feel like a grown up beekeeper.

That's pretty cool.

Look at that big beautiful truck.

Y'all couldn't have done it without me.

You're welcome.

Anytime.

- Great job Charlie.

- Dude, that was great.

- That was awesome.

- I was in the way but I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

- No, you were a pro.

- That was awesome.

- You're a pro, yeah.

- You got a great team.

They were like- - They were laughing at you the whole time.

(both laughing) - It's like a ballet.

They're like zoom, zoom, zoom with those- - It is incredible how good they get.

- Well that was great man.

Thanks so much.

- Yeah, thanks Charlie.

(upbeat music continues) (truck horn honking) (suspenseful music) - After the bees spend the fall getting fat and happy on clover up in North Dakota, they're trucked to a hideawa in Idaho for a little R and R. - My name's Tenney Lamoreaux, and I'm the owner of Bee Storages where we over-winter bees for commercial beekeepers.

- This is something that few people ever get to see.

(upbeat music) (machines whirring) - We hold the temperature at 40 degrees and then we also have the ability to keep the air oxygenated.

So we purge CO2 when those levels get too high.

- If you have bees and they're overwintering in Texas, well in Texas we have days that are 20 degrees and then it gets up to 60, and all the bees come out and start flying.

- The problem is there is nothing blooming and nothing for the bees to eat.

But if it's sunny and warm, the bees go to work.

So they're wearing themselves out looking for forage, burning through their honey and pollen reserves, literally working themselves to death.

- So what the sheds do is they keep it a stable temperature that is cold enough for the bees to hibernate, which they need to do, but not so cold that it' putting stress on the beehive.

- The bees are in this perfect stable climate for them to hibernate to rest.

So they come out of cold storage twice as strong than if they'd wintered outdoors in Texas.

- Between the three buildings on the facility, we can store up to 150,000 hives - 150,000 hives is a massive number.

We're talking about billions and billions of bees.

- It's forklift work, the majority of it.

But we're loading a truck right now with bees.

(upbeat music continues) The guys are trying to be smooth As you can see, there's only red lights on the forklift just so that we don't disturb the bees.

- You see bees don't see the color red.

- And you can have red lights and they won't come out of the hives, 'cause even at 40 degrees if you turn on regular lights, they will start coming out of the hives.

- So those red lights keep them chilling in the hives where they're supposed to b for the duration of the winter.

- So it's a little harder to see but they're unstacking carefully and the guys will load 'em up and throw nets over 'em and strap 'em down and send them to California.

(upbeat music) - Can somebody say Fresno?

Sunny California, baby.

Just about every bee in the United States has mass migrated right here to the Central Valley.

We're gonna be tagging along, watching this process of dragging bees out into the almonds or the ah-monds as they say here Gonna be awesome.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) All right.

Trucks coming in from Idaho.

We're on baby.

We got a big load.

408 hives on four way pallets.

Here we go.

This is awesome.

(chuckles) I wish these were my bees coming out here, maybe next year.

♪ Yeah, I'm the guy you call when they buzz ♪ ♪ I drive on by & pick them up ♪ ♪ And when they sting ya ♪ (cow mooing) ♪ We bring every solution ♪ Look at these cows running.

They're like, "Hey there's food.

The big livestock meets the little livestock.

(cow mooing) Man, how you doing?

- Good.

- I've been wanting to talk to a bee truck driver for a long time.

Every year I see a news story of a bee truck going over.

- Yeah, as you can see, a lot of bee trucks are on flatbeds and this is a top heavy load.

This is actually not that bad, but when we are loaded doubles, - Double deep.

- four high, it's very top heavy and you'll see an, oh, 55 mile-an-hour curve.

Don't believe that.

With a load like that on it ain't 55, you're gonna be 40 mile an hour and you're already noticing, it's like you can feel it.

- And you don't have to follow the same rules that most truck drivers do.

Is that right?

- No, we still have to run paper log but we don't have to worry about the half hour break.

And you pretty much, the rule of the thing is you gotta do what you gotta do with bees on.

All righty, we'll pull 'em off this way since my dunning rack is here on this side.

- Boom.

- Woohoo.

- Wee!

(Charlie speaks in foreign language) I'm trying to just help but stay out of the way if that makes sense.

These guys know what they're doing.

(upbeat music) Yeah, there's no pause for the cameras here.

How we do this?

- Just go stretch her out.

- Okay.

- Our crew is on a schedule.

They're on a tight window to get tens of thousands of beehives into orchards.

You know, they have to b moving a few thousand per night.

And they can't stop for Charlie to film.

And so this is going to be real.

It's gonna be live.

We don't have time to stage anything.

So yeah, Charlie's gonna be really just experiencing that real live action in how it works in reality.

- This is no joke.

These guys are super efficient.

They've been doing this around the clock for weeks.

I'm just trying to stay outta the way and watch and learn.

I wish these were my bees.

That'd be so cool to be bringing bees here.

He's gonna let me load one.

So, hopefully we don't dump these poor bees.

- Don't dump it.

- Don't dump these poor bees.

- I'm running if you are.

- That's fine.

All right, I'll try not to screw it up man.

(driver chuckles) Thank you for letting me do this - Should we be worried?

(laughs) Bad part is he is looking right into the sun, well, he might get it.

- I'm driving a forklift.

Down?

Okay.

Thank you.

Gotta make it look pretty.

Am I good?

- Ah.

Oh, okay, okay.

(forklift beeping) Who brought the cool guy?

I put it the wrong way.

Ah, I pissed those bees off.

- Oh yeah.

(upbeat music continues) - Some angry bees.

- That ain't nothing.

- I pissed 'em off pretty good.

- They're just coming out to see what in the world is this guy doing?

(chuckles) - I make each one look harder and harder.

- Hey, he's getting the job done That's all that matters.

He hasn't dumped one yet.

- These are my bees.

I'm keeping 'em.

I'll just drive in the sunset with these.

Woo-hoo.

This is awesome.

Awesome.

How's that?

- That's perfect.

- Like a rodeo.

Yeehaw.

Woo-hoo!

- Well, another load down.

- Victory lap.

Victory lap.

I didn't drop any!

I didn't drop any!

Thanks man.

Thank you for letting me do that.

(Charlie laughing) Six more hours on that, I'll be good at it.

- I was getting ready to run, just so I don't have to clean it up.

(chuckles) I've had some of them come down on top of me, and I'm here to tell you, that can make a mess of pissed off bees.

Another the beautiful evening.

(upbeat music) - These are awesome bees.

Lots of bees, right?

We are out at the holding yard.

This is where the bees, when they come off the trucks, they stage them here for getting 'em ready to go out into the orchards.

There's tons of bees all over this, right?

There's bees everywhere.

But look, I got no veil on and nothing.

Look how many bees are flying in and out of these and they're not stinging me.

Well they're not stinging me yet I'll probably get popped here any second, being so proud.

But even that, look at this, these bees, they're just eating.

So, it's a little like when you're out in your backyard and there's a bee flying around 'cause you got a coke in your hand, that bee doesn't wanna kill you.

That bee's just out for food.

So, these bees just want food.

They don't want anything.

"We love you Charlie."

I'm the king of the bees.

Ha-ha-ha-ha.

(upbeat music) There's the man!

- Charlie.

- How's it going, brother?

- Hey man.

- Texas to California, this is awesome.

- We are in Central Valley.

- And you're like a cowboy out here, right?

- Oh yeah for sure.

This is kinda like the wild wild west out here, running around in orchards, pitch black, dark.

Wrangling up bees.

- Every year, Justin comes all the way from Texas to California to head up Blake's bee operation here in Fresno.

What is happening here?

- A lot of the beekeepers are going through their stuff, pulling out anything that's not really worthy to go into an orchard.

Separating those off 'caus they won't get paid for those.

And now we're gonna give 'em a little shot of feed to kind of stimulate 'em, to get 'em ready, for whenever they get into the almonds that they'll actually be ramping up and it'll be a full force going into pollination.

And then this evening, once the sun sets, we'll start putting 'em on the trucks to get ready to go out.

We really like to load right as the sun's going down, while we still have a little bit of daylight and then we will be on the road once it dark.

So I got Cesar over there.

He's running the pump right now.

Let's drag you over there and get you on the feed rig and start doing some work.

- Should we hold hands now?

- Skip?

(both laughing) - Cesar, what's happening dude?

- What's up, my Charlie?

- How you doing?

- Pretty good.

- You guys have been killing it.

You're working around the clock right now?

- Yeah.

Crazy.

- I'd love to help a little.

- The hose is all yours.

- Okay man.

Show me how to do it.

- We're like firefighters here.

- Like firefighters?

Totally.

- Yeah, we gotta help each other.

- Totally.

Which one?

Like this?

- Yeah.

- You fill it all the way?

- We're doing halfway right now 'cause we're gonna move 'em tonight.

We don't spill it all.

- Wow, that's fast.

Boom.

I need a pump like this.

It's easier than my way with buckets.

- Yep.

(Charlie laughing) - It's nice that they have a uniform thing where the feeders are in the center.

It's quiet here.

Some might say a little too quiet.

(machine chugging) Uh-oh, smells like something burning.

- Something burned.

- Uh-oh.

(upbeat dramatic music) This is beekeeping.

So this is where I'd struggle.

'Cause these guys gotta fix things on the fly.

- That's smoking.

- Uh-oh.

Justin is off getting an oil filter on a truck.

And here we got the pump, pump stops, work stops.

It wouldn't be a Charlie Bee thing if something didn't break, so.

- Yep.

- I broke it.

I know.

(Charlie laughing) - No.

- My fault.

- That's 'cause it's... - What do you think it is?

- I don't know.

This thing has to be filled up with something, and we put oil.

- Yeah.

- But I think it's not oil, what's supposed to be in here.

- Oh really?

- I don't know what it is.

- Different type of oil Crankcase oil or something, or?

- I need to call Justin to get here.

- Okay.

So there's a reservoir and we had oil in it, and I think it might have needed hydraulic fluid or something different and it burned.

So it got real hot and the cap like melted a little bit.

Not the end of the world.

Just maybe the end of the day.

(upbeat dramatic music continues It's sundown in the holdin yard and we're on a time crunch to get these bees loaded up and out into the almond orchards for pollination.

Can I break some boxes tonight?

- Yeah, you can go ahead and load my truck some.

- Okay.

(chuckles) All right.

So I'm gonna be loading trucks.

They're giving me a chance on the forklift.

This is the show, man.

This is where it all happens.

So hope I don't screw it up.

(upbeat music) Doing this for the first time in daylight is one thing, but doing this on a time crunch in the dark is a whole 'nother ball of wax.

- I put it in the lower speed.

Go for it.

- Okay, cool.

I do like driving a forklift.

(chuckles) I'll try not to screw it up man.

(truck beeping) - Down!

Go three.

- Oh oh!

I'm setting land speed records here, baby.

- Yeah, I see it.

(truck beeping) - Oh!

You're gonna have problems.

That's why you have a crew.

You got a bunch of different people with different skills.

What would be hard is if you were by yourself, if you were just solo, something breaks, you're outta commission with a forklift.

Now you got bees, you got timing you got thousands of dollars worth of truck driving fees and they got people standing around pissed off.

So it makes me think I'll maybe keep my operation smaller.

I'm pretty much a certified forklift driver.

That's kind of what I do.

I drive forklifts.

Yeah.

So if I bring bees t California, it's gonna be this, they call it a story and a half, right?

Deep, 9 5/8, medium, 6 5/8.

So this is the brood chamber and like up in Texas I ru eight frame, a story and a half, which probably wouldn't qualify for California but 10-frame, story and a half, does just fine in California.

Plenty of brood.

But, so this is classic Texas maneuver, I think, a lot of us beekeepers in the Lone Star State.

We do story and a half.

Where's he putting it Where's he putting that truck?

- Okay.

So yesterday we're talking to old Justin, he's a tough dude man.

He knows this stuff.

He's always fixing stuff.

Swearing, and I said, "Hey man, how'd you learn to do all this stuff?"

And he turns to me and he goes, "You mean... how did I learn to be a man?"

I was like, "Oh."

(laughs) Hey, where am I hitting?

Hey!

- You want 'em side shift all the way to the right.

- Okay.

- Before you come in.

Right?

So you wanna have it all the way over here.

And whenever I come in, I usually like to come in kind of at an angle and I swing it in and drop it in.

- Cool.

- But I mean, honestly going in straight and just side shift it over.

That's the easy way.

(upbeat music continues) - Wonderful world of beekeeping.

(bee buzzing) (Justin grunting) (beep) Take!

Got one.

Oh, these are Texas bees for sure.

(chuckles) Oh, I think I'm all the way over to the left though.

Which one is side?

Oh there it is.

What am I doing wrong here gentlemen?

- The biggest thing is don't forget to release that clamp before you back out.

That's like the number one amateur move is to drag those boxes off the top of that clamp.

- Okay.

How cool is this?

The greatest mass migration of pollinators in the world, and I'm getting a sting right in the eye for it.

(forklift beeping) - Oh!

Tilt down.

- Yeah, okay.

- Tilt down.

- Yeah.

Let me go down.

♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ All right.

Nobody lost any money.

- Lemme do some work now.

- Yeah, get after it.

(upbeat music) - Oh you're in low speed too, now we're going.

- Yeah.

I made that look really difficult though.

That went very slow.

I didn't want to drop any bees.

Glad they gave me a chance to do it.

Stressful 'cause you got live animals that you love.

I love those bees.

I'm thinking about, "Man they're not happy about this."

So, when I watch these guys do it, they're so smooth and they just scoop 'em up and do much better.

I need hours of practice.

But that was a hell of a lot of fun.

That was a whole lot of fun.

(upbeat music continues) You guys never sleep.

I know it.

That's what it is.

All right, now these guys are gonna finish off this job, load up a whole bunch more bees.

Then we're going into the orchards to place these bees.

So cool to be part of this.

What a great opportunity.

This is big business.

We got a lot of guys, a lot of salaries going out today.

We got a lot of equipment and we got tens of thousands of dollars worth of bees.

- Millions of dollars worth of bees, there.

- Millions of?

- There we go.

So, and- - Lots of money.

- Yeah, so I mean the almond industry is a billion dollar industry.

I can't quote the acreage number exactly, because it changes every year, but last time I looked, you know it's 850,000, 900,000 acres of almonds.

Most of them need about two hives per acres.

So you know, we're looking at 1.8 million hives we need.

That number might be all the way up to two.

There are some almond varietals that only are really needing one hive per acre.

But if you have a lot of bees, this is probably where you send your bees.

- This is where 1.8 million hives, all across the United States come.

This is the place to be.

- You tag along.

And what we're gonna do, is this orchard I believe is about 20 minutes from here.

We'll get our little train going and we'll stop there.

Two of the small trucks will break off and we'll start placing, and you can come with one of the smaller trucks, see how we deploy.

- That'd be awesome.

- All right, let's get out there - All right.

(upbeat music continues) It might seem kind of hectic to an outsider, but this is a well-oiled machine The crew uses GPS software embedded in an app that tells them exactly where they need to place the hives in the orchards for maximum pollination.

- The people that we are paired with, this is their app for placing.

And so, we know what each drop is, and then whenever we get to a drop, I can click it and I get to say it's dropped, and it'll check it off.

And so we know exactly where the grower wants, and how much hives they want in that location.

And so we're gonna hit all the outside perimeters of all this and then come back and get another truck, do it again, and then come unload that big truck, and do it again.

- Awesome.

Let's do this.

(worker speaks in foreign language) - These are long days for the crews working here in California's Central Valley.

Most of the guys have been up since before 8:00 AM, and it's midnight here now.

This breakneck pace lasts for about three to four weeks until all the bees are loaded into the orchards.

(worker speaks in foreign language) - Then the eye of the storm.

The crew gets leave for the bees to do their thing.

But come March, it's time to pack them all up and head back to Texas.

And they do this year after year all so we can enjoy delicious almond milk in our lattes.

All right, what a night.

Holy cow.

This has been so cool to see the real deal, placing bees in almonds.

Man, these guys are working fast.

They're moving fast.

Placing these hives, following a map and an app with a GPS exactly where they are.

Boom, drop, drop, drop.

They've got three more trucks and it's late.

They're gonna keep going.

These guys work long hours.

So this is the big leagues, and been awesome to watch.

More to come.

(worker speaks in foreign language) (marker scratching) - My grandfather did this kind of stuff.

You know, my grandfather worked in, he was a oil delivery guy and put in boilers and banged his thumb every day, and my dad's real good at that.

And then I went to art school.

So that's what happened there.

But yeah, I wore a tutu.

I flit around with the bees.

♪ Lu, lu, lu, lu, lu ♪ (upbeat music) This is our last stop and the bees', too.

From Texas, wintering in Idaho, and finally here in California.

We're meeting up once again with the head honcho of migrator beekeeping, Blake Shook.

There's the man.

How you doing brother?

- Hey, good to see you.

- Good to see you.

Texas to California.

- Welcome to California.

- This is the big show.

- It's the show.

(Charlie laughing) - It's really amazing to see the full scale of the bee industry.

It's big business out here.

- It is.

I mean it's the wild west of beekeeping.

The biggest cash crop in California.

And we make as much money on pollinating the almond as we do on honey production.

I mean it's almost a half a billion dollar revenue stream for the beekeeping industry.

- Wow.

- So it's huge.

I really would love to get you over there and show you how all this works from a logistics perspective and getting into some of the nuts and bolts.

Let's do it.

- Awesome.

- All right, cool.

(upbeat music) So these trees, they need bees, they need pollinators.

They're just starting to bud.

When do the bees ge involved, when that bud opens?

- Soon as that bud opens.

- Okay, soon as that bud opens.

Pollen?

- Soon as that bud opens, they're all over it, yeah.

- Nectar?

- Mostly pollen.

And it's a really great pollen, super high protein.

- And they call these around here, it's not almonds, it's ah-monds.

- It's ah-monds 'cause you shake the “L” right out of 'em, - You shake the “L” out of 'em, right?

Because that's how they harvest.

- Right.

Right.

- There's the girls.

Look at that.

- There they are.

- I'm seeing little targets on these hives and they look like something techie.

What's that all about?

- So it's pretty cool.

So we do a lot of work for and with a company called BeeHero.

And they're trying to integrate technology with beekeeping.

And so, there are sensors, there's gateways on the outsides of the pallets that are transmitting a cell signal.

And then inside each hive, there is a sensor in the bottom box that is telling us how many frames of bees there are in the box, how many frames of brood there are, there's a GPS locator.

It can do all sorts of things.

And so, we're able now to see on our phones what's going on in our beehives in the almonds.

(upbeat music continues) So yeah, that's the sensor.

And so, it projects all throughout the hive.

And can read how many frame of bees there are in each hive.

- That would be great, just to know what the heck's going on.

Does that all pop up on the app?

- Yeah, so it'll show up on the app and tell us exactly how many frames of bees there are, how many frames of brood there are, where the hive is.

- Right.

- It's just a whole slew of data for us.

The beautiful thing about almonds is everywhere else in the country is cold, right?

And there's no flowers blooming.

And we have this incredibly protein-rich pollen starting in mid-February, and the bees just explode.

And so they just come out of almonds with frames and frames and frames of brood, tons of bees ready to be split.

It's a key management practice for commercial beekeepers because they grow faster here than anywhere else in the country.

(upbeat music) - What a journey for me & for the bees.

I never thought that I'd get such a hands-on behind-the-scenes experience with migratory beekeeping.

These folks are no joke.

Some of the hardest working people you'll ever meet.

So if you love almonds, thank the bees and the hardworking beekeepers.

(music begins) For more information about Charlie Bee Company, including new and exciting removals, visit us online as charliebee.com.